


And A Brainwashed Ex-KGB

by dancingloki



Series: Here We Come A-Wassailing [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-03 21:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2888192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingloki/pseuds/dancingloki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Clint and Natasha come up with a hare-brained scheme to catch Bucky as Steve's belated Christmas present, Sam has some reservations, but he lets them rope him in anyway. Will they be able to catch up to Bucky before the Twelve Days of Christmas run out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Twelve Drummers Drumming

**Author's Note:**

> meant to start posting this yesterday but I didn't actually finish writing it until 1am last night because I am a Literal Human Train Wreck TM pls enjoy

“Are you entirely sure you’ve thought this through, Clint?” Sam asked carefully, in a tone of voice that translated to ‘I’m entirely sure you haven’t thought this through, Clint.’

“Yeah,” Clint said cheerfully. “It’s gonna be fun.”

“Listen, don’t be offended by this, because I mean it in the best possible way, I really do, but to be perfectly honest, this is the kind of plan that Steve would come up with. No offense.”

“I’m telling Tasha you said that,” Clint said, flopping over sideways and hooking his legs over the back of the couch so his head dangled towards the floor.

“Tell her,” Sam retorted. “It’s still true.”

“And what exactly is your objection?”

“You want to know my objections to your brilliant plan?”

“Yep.”

“Your plan to secretly track down and capture Bucky, without letting Steve know what’s going on, and give him to Steve as a Christmas present?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Well.” Sam sighed. “I could point out that the last time we saw him, he kicked Natasha’s _and_ Steve’s asses, along with about a hundred S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and blew up a significant chunk of DC. I could also note that he’s basically a human ghost, and the final word in counterintelligence, and nearly impossible to track, and that we haven’t had a single solid lead on his whereabouts since the helicarrier battle. But I’m kinda tired and more than a little hung over, so I’m gonna go for the low-hanging fruit here and point out that Christmas was, in fact, yesterday.”

“That’s a matter of perspective,” Clint argued.

“It’s really not,” Sam insisted. “I mean, dude, the calendar is right there on the wall.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of the Twelve Days of Christmas? If the Wise Men can show up almost two weeks late to the party, then so can we. Besides, Christmas isn’t a date, it’s, like, a state of mind.”

Sam sighed again, and leaned back in his armchair. “So when do you think Christmas ends, then?”

“May, usually,” Clint said cheerfully.

Sam stared at him, deadpan. “Maybe in the Barton-Romanoff household, but out here in the real world, you’re pushing it if you try to stretch Christmas out past New Year’s.”

“Just the Romanoff household, actually. I’m planning to take her name if she ever stops dragging her feet and pops the question.”

“Don’t change the subject, man. The point is that you’re going to have a hell of a time explaining to Steve why he’s opening a Christmas present in May. So unless you plan on taking a full year to find Bucky—or worse, finding him and then hiding him somewhere until next Christmas, which I want to go on record as saying I am _strongly_ against—you’ve got, like, a week tops before shit gets weird. Assuming you can even find him, which, again, is really unlikely.”

“Don’t be such a downer.” Clint rolled his eyes. “Where’s your Christmas spirit? It’s the time of miracles, y’know.”

 Sam buried his face in his hands. “Why do you do this, Sam?” he mumbled under his breath. “Why do you surround yourself with spies and superheroes and genetically modified soldiers, all you get is stress and headaches and dangerously high blood pressure, why do you get yourself into these things…”

Out loud, he asked, “Do we at least have a _plan?_ ”

Clint passed him a slip of paper. Sam read it over. Then read it again. Then stared at Clint for a minute, then read it again.

“You can’t be serious.”

Clint grinned like a maniac.

***

“Why do I let you talk me into these things?” Sam moaned, tugging at his scarf to cover an exposed spot on his neck. Natasha smiled and slipped her arm through his, pulling it close.

“Because I’m adorable and because I could kill you with my pinky finger,” she said sweetly. “Keep your eyes open, he’s here somewhere.”

“How reliable is your intel, exactly?” Sam asked hesitantly.

She glared at him from the corner of her eye. “I don’t go on wild goose chases, flyboy. He’ll be here.”

“I’m not doubting you,” Sam hurried to add. “It’s just… ‘here’ is a high school marching band performance.”

“It’s not marching band, it’s drumline,” Natasha said distractedly, scanning the crowd.

“Oh, well, in that case,” he muttered wearily to himself. Natasha heard him and laughed.

“It’s not as weird as it sounds. The high school he and Steve went to together closed years ago; this is the one that now covers the school district where they lived. Odds are he’s retracing his past, trying to figure out what’s real.”

“That…almost makes sense,” Sam admitted. He looked around warily, trying to catch a glimpse of a now-familiar face. The football bleachers were packed with parents, all attention focused on the line of a dozen percussionists beating out intricate rhythms on their instruments and marking precise patterns with their feet.

They had only been searching for about fifteen minutes when Clint’s voice came through their earpieces. “Got him. Southeast corner, lurking by the concession stand. I’m gonna circle in from outside, you two take the inside and we’ll try and surprise him.”

“Man, this is a bad idea,” Sam muttered under his breath to Natasha as they wormed their way through the crowd. “The dude is dangerous, especially if we back him into a corner. Shouldn’t we be trying to evacuate people first?”

“And spook him?” Natasha shook her head. “He’s in an isolated part of the stadium, shouldn’t be anyone to get caught in the crossfire. If there is crossfire. Remember, he’s trying to disappear; he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself, especially official attention. As long as he thinks there’s a chance he can get out quietly, he won’t do anything that’ll cause a scene. There he is!”

She pulled Sam into a shadow, and they stared out from it across the empty space. Bucky made a forlorn figure standing there alone, hood drawn up over his face and hands shoved in his pockets, watching the drummers play, motionless as a statue.

Natasha murmured into her comm. “Clint, are you in position?”

His whispered ‘ready’ came back, just as quiet. She nodded grimly to Sam.

“On my mark. Three, two, one…mark!”

She threw herself out of the shadow, Sam sweeping in her wake. Bucky was caught off guard for an instant, but recovered just as quickly. He was moving more stiffly than before and favoring his left side, but with Natasha holding back to avoid any serious injury, they were still evenly matched, trading sweeps and blows with neither gaining the upper hand.

Sam waited, tensed, until he saw Bucky throw Natasha back off-balance and turn to make a run for it. Springing forward, he threw himself at Bucky, intending to rugby-tackle him to the ground. But instead, Bucky twisted sideways and rolled Sam over his hip, pinning him to the ground. Their faces only inches apart, Sam caught a brief glimpse of confusion and anger before Bucky was gone, sprinting off into the darkness.

Wincing, Sam accepted Natasha’s outstretched hand gratefully, letting her haul him to his feet. The sounds of a brief scuffle died out, and were replaced by a dejected Clint trudging up to them, one hand over what looked like a very promising black eye.

“So, back to the drawing board?” Sam said with false heartiness after a moment, trying to lighten the mood.

Natasha shook her head. She looked up at him and smiled. The gleam in her eye sent a shiver down Sam’s spine. “How long do you think it’ll take him to find it?” she asked Clint, who grinned back.

“I’d say not until he gets back to his base,” Clint replied. “We won’t have time to set up an ambush, but he won’t have time to conceal where he’s going next.”

“And now we just run him to ground,” Natasha concluded. A lightbulb went on in Sam’s head.

“You planted a tracking device on him,” he sighed, rubbing his face with one hand.

“Well, yeah, I mean that was the plan,” Clint said, staring at him in confusion. “Did you—did Natasha not tell you the plan?”

“No, Natasha did not tell me the plan,” Sam said pointedly, glaring at her.

She smirked at him, completely unrepentant. “This was funnier,” she shrugged.

“Why do you do this to yourself, Sam,” he muttered under his breath. “These people are crazy.”

Clint patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. “I wanna watch the rest of the show,” he announced. Natasha followed him down the bleachers, Sam trailing after them.

“Aren’t we gonna follow him?”

“No point,” Natasha called over her shoulder. “We won’t be able to stop him unless we can get ahead of him, and we won’t be able to track him any further than his current safehouse tonight anyway. We’ll get there first thing in the morning tomorrow and see what we can find out. Don’t worry, it’s only a matter of time now.”

They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, watching the twelve drummers play through their finale. Sam felt a strong arm wrap back around his.

“Don’t be such a sourpuss,” Natasha murmured. “Just imagine the look on Steve’s face.”

“It’s been way too long since I’ve seen him really smile,” Sam agreed. “If we can really pull this off…”

“Well, if there was ever a time of year for a hail mary, it’s Christmas,” she said, leaning into his shoulder.


	2. Eleven Pipers Piping

“He was _living_ here?” Sam asked, shocked. He was deeply regretting the breakfast he’d eaten, small as it was; the smell of the abandoned building was turning his stomach. Animal feces and urine were bad enough (he was trying _really_ hard not to consider the likelihood that there was human waste mixed in there); but judging by the stench of rotting flesh, something had died in the immediate vicinity, somewhere scavengers couldn’t easily get to it.

“For about a month and a half, it looks like,” Natasha answered absent-mindedly. She seemed deeply engrossed, to the point of fascination, with investigating a pile of—something that Sam didn’t want to figure out what it was. On the other side of the room (if you could call it that), Clint was nosing through a pile of rags and filthy clothes. He fished the tracking device out of the pocket of a ragged jacket with a satisfied exclamation, and tossed it to Natasha, who caught it without looking.

They sifted through the meagre belongings Bucky had left behind. In addition to the clothes, there was a stained, warped mattress tucked under the most intact section of the ceiling, covered by several threadbare, hole-ridden blankets knotted in a nest.

Empty cans of food, stew, ravioli, vegetables, all scraped clean, with one or two full cans left carelessly in the heap.

A surprising arsenal of weaponry—seemingly, Bucky had amassed more firepower than he could carry on him—which were spotlessly clean, almost shining, in stark contrast to the grime coating everything else.

Sam turned away, shivering in the December chill and focusing his attention on the only wall undamaged enough to fairly be called one. Wallpapered with newspaper clippings and articles, like something from a serial killer movie, it was arguably the most freak-out-able thing in Bucky’s makeshift home, but also the least pathetic. Sam leaned in closer, scanning the headlines and photographs.

“We should take these with us,” he announced abruptly.

Natasha and Clint traded raised eyebrows. “You think we could use them as bait?” she asked.

“No, I just think he’ll want them back. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything in here that would be really hard to replace, but he put a lot of effort into collecting all this.”

Natasha came up to stand next to him. “Yeah, I see what you mean,” she said after a moment.

Unsurprisingly, the common factor in every clipping was Steve. ‘Ice Ice Baby: America’s Captain Returns’ from a cheap tabloid brought the ghost of a smile to Sam’s face, while a more serious essay on how the Captain America image had been used and misused over the years—which looked like it had been torn out of a library book—made him frown thoughtfully.

The papers seemed at first glance to be randomly thrown up, but as they studied the wall, a pattern emerged. Dead center on the wall was a personal interview Steve had done with Time Magazine shortly after the Battle of New York, complete with a headshot of him in his Avengers uniform, smiling right into the camera. From there, the stories spiraled out counter-clockwise; the closer the source was to Steve himself, the closer to the center it was placed.

Wordlessly, Sam and Natasha began stripping the wall clean, working from the center and carefully keeping each piece of paper clean and un-torn. Clint somehow found a dry cardboard box somewhere that was mostly in one piece, and they laid the clippings in it in their proper order. By the time the wall was bare and the box was full, the sun was well up over the horizon, morning light streaming through the crumbling outer walls.

“So you guys know where he’s going next?” Sam asked, stretching out his back.

“I think so,” Natasha answered, passing him a piece of newspaper. It hadn’t been up on the wall; unlike the others, the edges were jaggedly torn instead of cleanly cut, and there was a muddy boot print dried over half the piece.

Sam pursed his lips, looking it over. It was a three-day-old article from The Washington Times about a special performance by the US Marine Drum & Bugle Corps, scheduled for that very evening.

“Retracing his steps, remember?” Clint said. “Guess he decided to skip a couple years and go straight to when he joined up.”

“He was Army, not Marines,” Sam pointed out, furrowing his brow, “and far as I know he was never within a hundred yards of _any_ musical regiment.”

Natasha rolled her eyes expressively. “Then maybe he’s just acting completely at random and we’re making up our own rationalization. Either way he wouldn’t have saved that unless he planned to be there. And yes, before you ask, I’m pretty sure he’ll still show up even though we’re on his tail. Whatever urge is driving him to go is stronger than any deterrent we offer.”

“Okay,” Sam shrugged. “Let’s see if they’ve still got tickets for sale.”

***

As it turned out, the performance was free to the public. Their fellow attendees were a perfect cross-section of modern America, from slick-suited politicians schmoozing with equally well-dressed millionaires, through obnoxiously patriotic tourists, to a few homeless people who drifted in off the street. Sam eavesdropped absent-mindedly on nearby conversations as he roamed the crowd, keeping an eye out.

“They were supposed to have a round dozen pipers, I heard, but one of them came down with the flu last-minute,” a man loudly informed his neighbor.

“I heard it was ebola, and they covered the whole thing up,” his neighbor replied. Sam rolled his eyes and kept moving.

No sign of Bucky had appeared by the time the show began and he had to find his seat. He couldn’t see Natasha, but Clint was just visible through the crowd on the far side of the stage. Sam knew that splitting up to cover more ground was smart, but he didn’t relish the thought of meeting an angry supersoldier-slash-ex-assassin alone; if he was the one to spot Bucky, he hoped the others would be close by to back him up.

His efforts to keep searching the crowd were disrupted by the fact that the performance was actually really good. The promised eleven pipers were, in fact, among the corps, and even had a special number as a group. They played a series of awesome classic whistle marches, while the drill team did some absurdly complex spinny things with their rifles that Sam was pretty sure violated at least three laws of physics.

The rest of the Corps was excellent too, of course, and Sam caught himself more than once being spellbound by the show instead of being on the lookout for Bucky. The two hours passed like a flash, and before he knew it he was milling in the courtyard, fighting not to be swept away by the exodus of departing patrons.

Unfortunately, he didn’t see so much as a glimpse of Bucky in the waves of people that rolled by him. Judging by the dejected look on Clint’s face when he caught up with Sam in the now nearly empty foyer, he’d been equally unsuccessful.

Natasha joined them a few minutes later, materializing out of thin air on the other side of the foyer and trudging towards them with her hands deep in her coat pockets.

“I lost him,” she announced when she got close.

“He was here?” Sam asked, surprised.

She nodded. “Caught a glimpse of him heading out of the building by the back way, but he vanished before I could catch up with him.”

“So, what now?” Sam asked, trying not to sound too disappointed. “Head back to his safehouse and try to find another clue?”

“I don’t think we need to,” she said slowly. Sam and Clint traded a glance, and waited for her to explain. Instead, she pulled a small square of cardboard out of her pocket, tossing it to Clint.

“A matchbook?” he said quizzically, and she nodded.

“He dropped it on his way out the door. It’s the kind they hand out in bars, clubs, places like that. I know it’s a long shot, but I think it’s worth following up. If he’s been a regular there, someone might recognize him, give us a clue as to what he’s been up to.”

“Nice,” Sam beamed at her, reaching out a hand to Clint for the matchbook.

Natasha raised her eyebrows. “You’re not going to gripe about the thinness of the lead?”

“Nah.” Sam chuckled a little. “This is turning out to be kind of fun. Besides, I didn’t think we’d even get this close. I mean hell, I actually _touched_ him yesterday. We can’t give up now, not when we almost got him!”

Clint started grinning too, Sam’s cheerful mood was so infectious. “Now that’s the Christmas spirit!”

“So, we head back to my place,” Sam continued. “Look up everything we can find out about wherever he got this from, and tomorrow we hit the streets again, track him down.”

“Just what I was about to suggest,” Natasha said smoothly, the corner of her mouth quirking upwards.

“We gotta stop at the grocery store first,” Clint insisted, bouncing back on his heels. “I may or may not have finished all your eggnog. And most of the rum. Okay, all the rum.”

Sam gave an exasperated sigh, but couldn’t stop himself from smiling fondly all the same. “Okay, okay,” he agreed. “Let’s get a pumpkin pie too. What the hell, it’s Christmas, right?”

“ _That’s_ the Christmas spirit!” Clint repeated, heading for the door.


	3. Ten Lords A-Leaping

“The Leaping Lord, huh?” Clint said from his perch on the back of Sam’s couch. “Weird name.”

“Weird logo,” Sam agreed, inspecting the matchbook cover for the twentieth time. The Lord was a grotesque cartoonish figure in a faux-Old English style, with bulging red cheeks and bright purple pantaloons, leaping over what looked like an old-fashioned beer barrel.

It was Sunday morning, and they were relaxing in Sam’s living room while Natasha saw what she could come up with online about the mysterious clue Bucky had dropped.

“Oh _great_ ,” she said disgustedly from the table, scowling at the screen of Sam’s laptop.

“What?”

“These people think they’re _clever_. This website looks like it was made by a middle schooler in 2003, and it’s got a bunch of made-up, romanticized bullshit about how the bar name comes from Beltane traditions and ‘The Right of Prima Nocta,’ all of which is _very_ historically inaccurate.”

She thrust the computer away from her. “It’s a chain of dive bars, and there are _ten_ of them in the DC metropolitan area. And since we don’t know which one he got the matchbook from, it means we get to investigate each single one separately, including probably bribing up to ten separate bartenders to actually answer our questions.”

“They even gonna be open today? On the Sunday after Christmas?” Clint asked, concerned.

“Ten to two, same hours for all of them. And I am not looking forward to driving all the hell over town in holiday traffic.”

Sam checked his watch. “It’s pushing nine-thirty already. If we’ve really got ten of these places to check out, we should get going now. Where’s the closest one?”

Natasha dragged the computer back towards herself and squinted at the screen. “Anacostia. They’re spread out mostly through the east and southeast districts.”

“Oof,” Clint chimed in. “Rough part of town.”

“You should talk, the neighborhood you live in,” Natasha retorted.

“That’s why I can say that. It’s my professional opinion.”

“Whatever. Get your coat. And leave your bow and the stupid trick arrows here, we don’t want to attract attention.”

Clint stuck his tongue out at her and backflipped off the couch.

“Showoff,” Sam told him.

***

They found themselves outside of the first of the bars a few minutes before it opened. The dingy street was almost empty; bits of broken glass from a smashed bottle littered the sidewalk. The same logo from the matchbook dangled from an old-fashioned wooden street sign, the paint faded, chipped and peeling.

“Okay,” Natasha said firmly. “We’re on my turf here, so let me do the talking. You two just keep quiet and try to look tough, got it?”

The rattle of the security gate raising and the electric hum of the open sign flickering to life stopped them from answering. Natasha strode through the door without hesitating, Sam and Clint keeping close behind her.

“Morning,” she said sweetly to the bartender, a paunchy middle-aged man who was swiping the surface of the bar with a filthy rag. He turned around, startled, his scowl turning into a lecherous grin when he saw her. “You have a minute?”

“For you, baby, I got twenty,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“I’d say you found someone, sweet cheeks,” he leered. She smiled coyly at him, and Sam could swear he saw her flutter her eyelashes.

“Aww, you’re sweet, but unfortunately I’m looking for someone in particular. Do you recognize this man?” Natasha slipped a photograph of Bucky—one Sam recognized, from the Winter Soldier files—out of her pocket, handing it over to the bartender, who took it from her with ill-concealed disappointment.

After studying Bucky’s face for a moment, he handed it back, shaking his head. “Never had him in here that I can remember,” he said. “What, he knock you up and run out on you?”

“Actually, he owes some money to an…associate of mine,” she lied smoothly. “You sure he can’t have been here? Maybe on a night you weren’t working? We heard from a good source he frequents this place.” Behind her, Sam flexed his shoulders and expanded his chest, trying to look intimidating.

The barkeep shrugged. “Dunno what to tell you. Guess your source was lyin’,” he said. “I’m in here seven days a week, or the little fucks’ll dip into the register when my back’s turned. He ain’t been here.”

“All right, thanks,” she said, tucking the photo back into her pocket and turning to leave. Sam and Clint followed her back out to the car.

“Any chance he was lying?” Sam asked.

Clint shook his head. “One down, nine to go.”

***

Eight more dead ends later, they stood outside the tenth and final Leaping Lord.

It was late, going on eleven. They’d spent more than twelve hours driving around, getting stuck in traffic jams, searching for parking spaces, and interrogating bartenders and servers, who were varying degrees of cooperative. Sam had stopped keeping track of how much Natasha had laid out in bribes after he got past five hundred.

“I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but do we have a game plan if this one doesn’t pan out?” he asked.

“Widen the search, I guess,” Clint answered.

Natasha went on, “Their website said they had a couple of locations outside DC. If we can’t track him down at any of those, we go back to what’s left of his hideout, see if there’s anything we missed. Beyond that, we’re back at square one. But let’s not burn that bridge until we get to it.” She lead the way into the bar.

It was filled with cigarette smoke, and disreputable-looking people in various stages of drunkenness. Natasha cut a clean path through the crowd, flagging down the bartender, who brushed back her bleached bangs and glared at her suspiciously.

“You know this guy?” Natasha asked, businesslike, holding out the picture of Bucky.

“Never seen him,” the bartender said instantly, without so much as glancing at the photo. Natasha pushed a hundred dollar bill across the bar. She held it up, inspecting the watermark, then stuffed it in her pocket and held out a hand for the picture. “I dunno. He looks familiar, but we get so many people through here, it’s hard to keep track, y’know? And my memory’s not what it used to be.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and handed the woman another bill. She took it and grinned smugly, studying the picture again.

“Oh, sure, now I remember. Dom.”

“You know him?” Sam cut in.

The bartender shrugged. “Not really. He comes in once in a while. I think his full name’s Domovoi, he’s Russian or something. Weird guy. Wears gloves inside, never seen him take them off, and always keeps his coat on no matter how hot it gets in here. He’s probably on the run or something, but we get all sorts in here. Hey, you’re not feds, are you?” She squinted at them suspiciously.

Natasha reassured her that they were just private citizens looking for information, and slipped her another fifty as evidence. “Has he been in recently? Any idea where he’s staying?”

“I saw him maybe a week and a half ago, not since then. And no. He’s not exactly what you’d call talkative, if y’know what I mean. Tell you what, though,” and she snapped her fingers. “last time he was in here he said something about a bowl? A bowl show. Something like that. Maybe he meant the super bowl, like the halftime show, but that’s not for a couple of months. That mean anything to you?”

“No, nothing. Thanks for the help.” Natasha lead the way out of the bar to the street. The second they were out of the line of sight of any potential observers, she pulled Clint and Sam into the nearest alley. “Bolshoi,” she hissed. “Not bowl show, Bolshoi. As in the Russian ballet. It was my cover story when I was with the KGB. I did hear they were doing a show in D.C., one night performance, very exclusive, invitation-only. Tomorrow.”

“That sounds like a plan. I’ve never seen the ballet before, much less a fancy, exclusive Russian one. You think you can get us in?” Sam asked.

She gave him one of her signature _who-do-you-think-I-am_ glares. “Shouldn’t be a problem. We’re gonna have to get Francis here into a tux, though, which is probably going to be even harder than bathing that fleabitten mutt of his.”

“Don’t even lie, you _love_ Pizzadog,” Clint said.

“You shouldn’t feed dogs pizza, Clint, it’s bad for them. Everybody knows that.”

“Awww, Tash,” he mumbled.

“I’m not telling you not to, I’m just saying, if he throws up all over your shoes, you’ll have only yourself to blame.”

Sam watched them bickering like an old married couple all the way back to the car.


	4. Nine Ladies Dancing

“Clint, stop pulling at your collar,” Natasha ordered.

“It _itches_ ,” he griped. “There’s too much starch.”

“I know it itches, just suck it up. You think these shoes are comfortable? You’re drawing too much attention to us.”

“I’m gonna sweat the concealer right off my face in this thing, see if a nice shiny black eye will help us fit in.” He turned away from her to Sam, still pouting. “Aren’t you uncomfortable? How do you look so chill?”

Sam chuckled. “I was in the military, remember? Try dress blues sometime. You wanna talk about itchy. A tux is like sweatpants in comparison. Besides, it’s hard to be uncomfortable when you look this good.”

Clint turned his back on both of them, scowling and tugging at his collar again.

The small, lavishly decorated concert hall was filled with elegantly dressed people. Red-suited waiters wove through the crowd, bearing trays of full and empty champagne glasses to and from the kitchen.

Sam caught a glimpse of his reflection in a polished metal panel. He had to admit, the rented tux might not be his usual thing, but he looked slick. Clint…slightly less so, but he stood out a lot less than he probably thought he did. Natasha, on the other hand, who could fit in anywhere without trying, was stunning in her floor-length black and red gown.

“Tell me again how you pulled this off?” Sam murmured to her.

Natasha gave him a secretive half-smile. “Even on every watch and most wanted list there is, I still have plenty of people in this town who owe me favors. And even more who’d like me to owe them one. Ballet tickets are a snap.”

Apparently, Natasha’s pull even extended to a private box in the balcony. They settled into their seats as the lights began to dim, the orchestra picking up the first strains of the overture.

The Bolshoi ballet troupe was world-renowned for their skill. Novelty and innovation might be the order of the day in some art forms, but in Russian ballet, tradition and the perfection of legacy ruled. _Swan Lake_ had premiered at the Bolshoi when it was first written, and the Bolshoi considered it their own. And for good reason; their ballet troupe’s performance of the classic show was unparalleled.

The dance moved seamlessly into the second act with no sight or sign of Bucky. Not that Sam was looking; he’d been enthralled by the dancers from the moment the curtain lifted.

Odette and her eight handmaidens fluttered into view, weaving in graceful patterns, as elegant as the birds they were meant to be. Sam was as captivated as Prince Siegfried, perching on the edge of his seat.

In contrast, Natasha was on edge; shifting in her seat, craning her neck and twisting around to search the crowd, looking everywhere but the stage. It seemed like she was actively avoiding seeing any of the performance. Clint would have been worried about attention drawn from the annoyance of the other patrons, but for the privacy of their seats.

At intermission, she rose to her feet the instant the house lights came up.

“I’m going to have a look around,” she announced. “You two stay here, keep scanning the crowd. He’s here somewhere.” Without waiting for an acknowledgement, she turned and swept out of the room.

Clint chuckled and settled back into his seat. Sam huffed out a short breath, raising his eyebrows and doing the same.

“Hope she makes it back before intermission ends.”

“She’s not coming back,” Clint said, tugging at his bow tie until he pulled the knot loose. “They have food here, right? Like those fancy hors d’oeuvres? They gotta have some left over from the reception, let’s see if we can’t get the waiter to bring us some.”

“What do you mean, she’s not coming back,” Sam demanded, sitting up straight.

Clint shrugged. “She’s probably got a hunch or something that she’s following up on. You don’t get to be the greatest spy in the world without developing a few instincts. Don’t worry, she knows what she’s doing. She’ll turn up after the show’s over with a new lead looking obnoxiously pleased with herself, and in the meantime, we get to kick back and enjoy the ballet. Seriously, Sam, just relax.”

Sam settled back in his chair uneasily. Clint was right, of course; Natasha remained conspicuously absent for the rest of the show. Fortunately, the second half was as engrossing as the first, and he was soon sucked back into the story. Before he knew it, the ballet had come to its tragic and quintessentially Russian conclusion. The lights came up, the theatre-goers were finding their coats and gradually working towards the exits, and Natasha was yet nowhere to be seen.

“Shouldn’t we go try to find her?” Sam asked, biting his lip anxiously. Clint shrugged, unconcerned.

“She’ll turn up when she finds what she’s looking for.”

“But what if something happened? She caught up with him, they fought, maybe? She could be hurt.”

“She’s fine.”

“I dunno, man, I think we should go look.”

“Look for what?”

The voice in his ear made Sam jump out of his skin. Natasha had appeared out of thin air, standing just behind him in the box. She smirked at him, then turned on her partner. “Jesus, Clint, I leave you alone for five minutes and you turn into a hobo? You look ridiculous, fix that thing before somebody sees you.”

Clint threw Sam an _I-told-you-so_ look as he started doing up his bow tie again.

Natasha was tapping her foot impatiently. “Come on, we’re leaving. I think I saw that General Talbot clown lurking around in the crowd during intermission, last thing I want to do tonight is pretend to be nice to that asshole.”

They followed her swiftly out onto the street to where Sam’s car was parked. Clint held the door for her with mock servility, then climbed into the back.

“So where was he?” he asked, when they were underway.

“Up in the ceiling near the lighting catwalk,” she answered. “He rabbited when he saw me but he left us another juicy little breadcrumb. I know where he’ll be tomorrow.”

“Cool,” Clint said, satisfied. After a few minutes, the sound of gentle snoring drifted up from the backseat.

Sam let the quiet stretch out. Natasha seemed perfectly content to do the same, and they rode in silence for the rest of the trip back to Sam’s house, right up until he parked in his driveway.

“We waking him up, or carrying him in?” he joked, looking back at Clint in the backseat.

“Leave him there,” she answered. “He’s slept in stranger places.”

“In December? He’ll go hypothermic,” Sam argued. Natasha rolled her eyes.

“I wasn’t serious. Hey, Clint? Clint!” She leaned over into the backseat, shaking him awake. Together, she and Sam steered him to the house and in through the door.

Sam caught her elbow before they followed Clint inside, gently closing the door before he spoke.

“So what’s going on with you?” he asked quietly. “And don’t say nothing, because even you aren’t _that_ good a liar.”

“You’d be surprised,” she countered, smiling. Sam just met her gaze evenly until her smile vanished and she looked away, defensive.

“Look, if you don’t want to tell me, I get that,” he said. “It’s none of my business, and I won’t push. But it’s not like you to let people see when you’re rattled, and that makes me kinda think that you do want to talk about it.”

She considered him for a long moment before responding. “I performed in _Swan Lake_ in 1948, when I was twenty years old,” she said conversationally. “I was one of twenty-eight young ballerinas with the Bolshoi, training hard for the glory of Soviet culture. They sung the praises of my Odette in Moscow for years.”

“I thought you said that was just a cover story,” Sam said, confused.

“It was,” she answered him calmly, looking up at the stars. “I never danced in the Bolshoi Theatre. But I still remember doing it. I remember the lights, and the crowd, and the roses they threw at my feet as I took my bows. I even remember how the flowers smelled. The proud smiles of my parents. It was one of the happiest nights of my life, and it never happened. It only exists in my mind.”

“They can really do that?” Sam asked, horrorstruck. “Give you fake memories?”

Natasha nodded. “It took me years, decades even, to figure out what parts were real. Of course, I was mostly on my own. It’ll probably be faster for Bucky, since he’s got someone to anchor him, who can help him sort the memories out. But it’s a big part of the reason we’re able to keep up with him. I’m probably the only person on the planet who can come close to understanding what he’s going through.”

“Yeah,” Sam said quietly. It felt painfully inadequate, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say or do. Besides, if he seemed like he was trying too hard, she would probably close herself off again.

“Honestly? The hardest thing about it is figuring out _why_. Why would they give me that memory? Why make me believe that? It’s not like it made my cover any stronger, probably the opposite… Anyway, it’s hard for me to watch someone else perform that show,” she concluded. “I’ve come to terms with my past, and there’s not a lot that gets to me, but something about that memory…I don’t know. I’m always left with the strongest feeling that it’s what I was _born_ to do, to dance that role. My destiny, somehow. And I always get weirdly jealous when I see someone else perform it, because I know I never really did. That’s all.”

“It’s plenty,” Sam said, shrugging. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Well, you’re freakishly easy to talk to,” she teased. “Maybe you have a superpower after all, huh? We can start calling you Empathy Man instead of Falcon.”

“Please don’t,” Sam groaned. She laughed and headed into the house. “No, seriously, please don’t,” he called after her. “My mom catches wind of that and I’ll never hear the end of it. Natasha?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops the end got a lil sad oops
> 
> don't worry tomorrow's is gonna be mad funny


	5. Eight Maids A-Milking

Natasha and Clint were already awake and making a mess in Sam’s kitchen when he dragged himself down the hallway, still yawning. They looked as if they’d had some kind of food fight; Natasha had flour powdering her hair, and Clint had a smudge of butter on one cheek. They were leaning into each other and laughing, fighting over the spoon, when they realized Sam had come in and turned to wave good morning.

Sam rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, smiling, and shooed them away from the counter, salvaging the pancake batter they’d been making a hash of.

He heated up the griddle, letting a fat dollop of butter sizzle and dance over its surface, and spooned the batter into it. While they cooked, he called over to Natasha, “So you never said last night what our new lead is.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “What with Clint falling asleep on the floor and us having share time, we never got around to it.”

“Share time?” Clint pricked up his ears. “You had share time without me?”

“That’s what you get for falling asleep,” she told him. “But you didn’t miss anything you don’t already know. I was just telling Sam a little about my dark sordid past with the ballet.”

“Awww,” he said, flopping down into a chair. “Thought maybe you got some juicy secrets from Sam or something. About _his_ dark sordid past.”

“I don’t have a sordid past,” Sam laughed. “I’m a very boring guy. No secrets worth knowing.”

“Everyone has secrets,” Clint said dismissively. “We’ll find yours out eventually, don’t worry. In the meantime, what new adventure are we off to today?”

“You’re gonna love this,” she said, winking at him. “It’ll be just like going home to your place in Iowa. Except smellier, probably, and significantly less run-down.”

“I resent that. My farm isn’t run-down, it’s…quaint. Verging on picturesque.”

“Ramshackle is the word that comes to mind,” she retorted. “Verging on derelict.”

“Clint has a farm?” Sam asked.

“Derelict?” Clint sat upright, indignant. “I’ll have you know that house is in _perfect_ condition.”

“And the huge leak in the roof is what, a cosmetic feature?”

“Hang on, since when does Clint have a farm?”

“It adds to the rustic charm.”

“Rustic charm of three out of five windows refusing to close all the way and raccoons nesting in the attic, more like.”

“How long have you had a farm? _Why_ do you have a farm?”

“It’s an authentic Midwestern classic. That farmhouse is my pride and joy. Shut up.”

“Oh my god, Clint, you go there like once a year.”

“Does everyone know about this but me?”

“I’m gonna settle down there. It’s my retirement plan. Gonna grow things and keep chickens and stuff.”

“Grow what? Arrows? You don’t know how to run a farm, Clint.”

“Can somebody please explain about the farm.”

“Clint has a farm in Iowa and it’s almost as much of a living disaster as he is,” Natasha summed up. “Do you guys want to know what we’re doing today, or not?”

“I want an actual explanation about the farm,” Sam insisted, scooping the final batch of pancakes onto the heaping plate and delivering them to the table.

“It’s a long story,” Clint shrugged, drenching his plate in maple syrup. “Tell us what we’re doing today!”

“We,” said Natasha theatrically around a bite, “are going on a field trip to Sunny Valley Dairy Farm. It’s a bit of a drive—it’s in New York, outside of Poughkeepsie—but we should be able to get something more solid there. Oh my god, Sam, these pancakes are amazing.” She stuffed another big forkful into her mouth.

“Awww, cows,” Clint said. “Do you think they have dogs there? Like, to herd the cows? Maybe we should take Pizzadog with us.”

“We are absolutely not bringing Pizzadog,” Natasha said firmly. Clint shrugged and pulled more pancakes onto his plate.

“Why in the hell would he go to a dairy farm?” Sam asked.

“He won’t be there tomorrow, but he’s been there. This fell out of his pocket when he took off.” She tossed a weatherbeaten slip of paper onto the table.

“This looks like a pay stub,” Sam said, quizzically.

“It is a pay stub,” Natasha confirmed. “From Sunny Valley Dairy Farm, where Bucky apparently worked for at least two weeks doing manual labor. So, off we go to find out what he was doing there, and what they can tell us about where he went next.”

“What’s the place like?” Sam asked, passing the pay stub back across the table.

“Political,” Natasha said. “They sell ‘ethically produced’ milk, butter and cheese, treating milk collection like a partnership instead of an exploitation. I guess they’re trying to prove that you can run a farm without any animal cruelty practices and still have it be a viable, profitable business. It seems to be working out okay for them so far.”

“Worthy goal,” Sam nodded. “How far is Poughkeepsie?”

“About five hours if the traffic’s not insane around New York, but it’s worth it if it gives us any fresh intel.” Natasha stood up, clearing their plates. “I called ahead before you got up, so the owner’s expecting us around three.”

***

The owner was waiting for them as they pulled up the snow-covered dirt lane. She stuck out a broad hand to shake each of theirs in turn, introducing herself as Mackenzie ‘call-me-Kenz’ Harrington.

“Come on in out of the cold,” she said, shaking the snow off her boots. “Glad to see you got up here all right. Not that I was worried, snow ain’t been too heavy the past couple of days, but you never know. So you wanted to know about Ivan, right?” She lead them into the kitchen, waving them towards the chairs.

They traded glances as they sat down. “I didn’t say who we were looking for,” Natasha said carefully.

“Well, from what you said on the phone, it could only be Ivan.”

“You run a place this big with only two of you?” Sam asked, surprised.

“There’s eight of us around here, actually. I got seven cow hands, but I’ve only had one male one since I started up. He was here for about a month, May to June.”

Natasha passed the photograph of Bucky over to Kenz.

“Yep, that’s him,” she said, nodding. “Can’t say I’m surprised to have somebody come around looking for him. Figured it’d be a lot sooner, to be honest.”

“What makes you say that?” Clint asked.

“Way he just showed up out of the blue like that. The arm was a big tip-off too. Some kinda fancy high-tech prosthesis, looked like the same level tech as that Iron Man suit. Guy goes walking around with a fortune in cybernetics hanging from his shoulder, sooner or later people are gonna start asking questions about him.”

Natasha nodded thoughtfully. “Did he tell you who he was, or where he’d come from?”

“Nope. Just called himself Ivan, said he needed a place to stay for an honest day’s work. Never got his real name, or a last name, either.”

“And it didn’t bother you, not knowing who he really was?” Sam cut in.

Kenz shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t care to know things that ain’t my business. I figure everybody’s runnin’ from something, in the end. He worked hard and did right by the cows, that’s all I cared about. Strong as hell, too. Man could lift four big hay bales at once like they were nothing. I was sorry to lose him.”

“Why did he leave?” Natasha asked.

“No idea. Didn’t even put in any notice. Got up one morning and he’d just cleared out during the night, sudden as he’d come. Took all his stuff with him, little as it was. Right in the middle of a pay cycle, too, a full eight days of work he never got paid for. Damndest thing.”

“And he didn’t leave any mention of where he was going?”

“None.”

“Not even a hint?” Natasha pressed. “Something he might have said in passing, anything to indicate anywhere he was going or anywhere he’d been? Any ties to any place?”

“Wish I could help you,” she said. “He barely said two words together the whole time he was here, and it was always about work. Only time he ever said anything about himself was tellin’ me his name and that he was lookin’ for a job. You’re welcome to talk to the women, see if he talked more with any of them, s’long as you don’t keep ‘em from their work. But I doubt you’ll get anything. He kept to himself, that I could see.”

“All right, thank you.” Natasha rose to her feet. Kenz followed, shaking the proffered hand again. “And thank you again for all your help.”

“Sure thing,” Kenz shrugged. “I gotta get back to it. The hands’ll all be in the barn this time of day, out the way you came and back around the building.”

They interviewed the seven cow hands, just for thoroughness’ sake, but it was clear Natasha didn’t expect to learn anything from them. The air in the car on the drive home was dejected.

“We’re not giving up, though, right?” Sam asked, breaking the silence, as they crossed the Pennsylvania border.

“Of course we’re not giving up,” Natasha said grimly. “We’re going back to square one, and we’re going to run every lead down into the ground, and we’re going to wrap this motherfucker in tinsel and put him under Steve’s Christmas tree if I have to burn the entire east coast to the ground to do it.”

“I love you so much,” Clint sighed from the backseat.


	6. Seven Swans A-Swimming

“So that’s it? We really got nothing?”

They were sitting on a park bench next to a pond in the gathering darkness of evening. Clint was throwing chopped-up grapes and corn kernels to the flock of ducks and geese that had crowded around.

“There must be something we missed,” Natasha said, rubbing her temples.

“Okay, let’s go back over it.” Sam started counting on his fingers. “One, his safehouse.”

“Went over it with a fine-toothed comb this morning,” Natasha said. “There’s nothing more we can learn there.”

“Two, the bar.”

“Six hours this afternoon interrogating every staff member and every regular who saw or talked to Bucky while he was drinking there. Nobody knows anything useful.”

“Three, the ballet.”

“I went over his vantage point really thoroughly the day of. If he had left _anything_ else behind, I would have found it.”

“Then we’re screwed,” Sam said, putting his head in his hands. “Even if we end up getting another lead out of the blue, it’ll never be in time for Christmas.”

“What we need is a Christmas miracle,” Clint said, tossing out his last handful and dusting off his hands.

“Unfortunately we don’t live in a Frank Capra movie. Christmas miracles are in short supply around here.” Natasha leaned back on the bench and sighed. “We’re not quitting on this, not by a long shot. We just need to take a step back and find a fresh angle.”

They thought in silence for a while, listening to the squabbling of the waterfowl still crowding around the bank of the pond.

“I might have an idea,” Sam said slowly.

“Lay it on us.”

“I was just thinking…what you said about a fresh angle. What if we stopped thinking like spies and started thinking like, y’know, his friends?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well…what do you do if somebody goes missing? If you’re a normal schmoe, and not a secret agent?”

“Hire a PI?” Clint suggested.

“Not if you don’t have money,” Sam said. “If you don’t have money…”

“…You put up flyers,” Natasha said, sitting up. “Sam, that’s genius! We flush him out, put his face up on every telephone pole and bus stop. ‘Missing: James Barnes, answers to Bucky, may bite if provoked.’ It’s _perfect_. He can’t take them all down, and in a city this size _somebody_ must have seen him.”

“Um, guys?” Clint said.

“Come on, let’s get home right now and put something together,” Natasha said excitedly. “If we work fast we can have them up over half the city before we knock off tonight. Should we offer a reward? I kind of feel like we should, but on the other hand, it also seems like it could backfire pretty spectacularly.”

“Guys,” Clint said.

“A reward might make people more likely to get involved, but it’s also going to get us a lot more liars trying for a quick buck…we’ll figure it out when we write it up. We should definitely put something about his PTSD on there, though. We _really_ don’t want people trying to approach him on their own.”

“ _Guys!_ ” Clint shouted.

“ _What_ , Clint?”

“Christmas miracle.”

Clint pointed out across the pond, to the lone figure in the dark hoodie who had frozen in his tracks when he saw them sitting there.

“Shit! Go, go, _go!_ ”

Bucky bolted the instant they moved, Clint and Natasha each sprinting around one side of the pond after him. Sam sprinted after them with all his might, following Natasha. Bucky had a decent head-start, but Natasha was fast as all hell on her feet, and in an open space with nowhere to disappear to, it was all he could do to keep ahead of her.

Sam and Clint spread out from each other, covering as much distance as they could, but kept in as near a beeline as possible in Bucky’s direction. This was made more difficult by the mad dance the two super-soldiers were leading each other around the park.

Bucky dodged, weaved and threaded, changing direction as often as he could manage, trying to throw Natasha off long enough to make a break for it. But Natasha followed his every move flawlessly, using her smaller size and greater dexterity to change direction on a dime, gaining on him a fraction with every turn he took.

Finally, Bucky saw an opening, and grabbed it with both hands. He bolted at a dead sprint towards the southern end of the park. Clint charged towards him, but wasn’t fast enough to intercept Bucky before he made it to a shallow marshy area that was a favorite with the local waterfowl.

A chorus of enraged honking, squawking and hissing followed in Bucky’s wake, his escape hidden by the tall marsh reeds. Natasha bulled after him, Clint and Sam hot on her heels—only to be turned back by a vicious wall of clacking beaks, and a punishing flurry of beating white feathers.

The flock of seven massive trumpeter swans, minding their own business swimming and foraging among the hidden rushes, had been taken by surprise enough to let Bucky pass through unchallenged. Now that their ire was fully roused by the intrusion, however, they were more than willing to protest any further human presence in their territory. The pursuers backpedaled, slipping back in the mud as they tried to avoid the powerful sweeping blows from the swans’ wings—strong enough to break a human arm.

Sam, in the rear of the group, wrapped one strong arm around Natasha’s ribcage and grabbed the back of Clint’s shirt with the other, hauling them bodily backwards until they tumbled in a muddy heap on dry land at the edge of the marsh. Seemingly satisfied with defending their borders, the swans let them go without further attack.

“ _Shit_. Shit!” Natasha was back on her feet in an instant. “Come on, we can’t lose him!”

She went bounding off, circling around the marshy area. Sam and Clint headed after her as quickly as they could.

“Aren’t swans supposed to migrate?” Clint wailed as they ran. “What are they still _doing_ here?”

“Visiting family for New Year’s, maybe?” Sam joked, between gasps for breath.

They nearly collided bodily with Natasha. She had stopped abruptly in the middle of the street after chasing Bucky’s wet footprints into an urban jungle of a neighborhood, filled with abandoned buildings and strange shadows.

Sam began, “Nat, what—”

“Shhh,” she held up a finger to silence him, cocking her head from side to side. A predatory smile spread slowly across her face. “I’m working.”

Clint pulled Sam back into a shadow and leaned up to whisper in his ear. “She’s in hunter mode now, just let her do what she does. I’m gonna go get a better vantage point. You better stay put. Don’t worry, she’s got him now. It’s cat and mouse.”

Sam nodded, swallowing. Clint vanished from sight; Sam caught a glimpse a moment later of a shadow passing over him, high above. Natasha certainly looked like a hunter; she was low to the ground, moving with the surety of a jungle cat closing in on its prey. Sam felt a strange chill run up his spine at the sight, suddenly very grateful that he had no reason to fear being on the receiving end of her predatory pace.

Slinking in and out of sight, Natasha moved, tracing some pattern only known to her and Bucky as she tracked down her quarry. From his shadow, Sam held his breath, captivated, as she suddenly darted up a wall, flipping silently in through a shattered window.

He waited in silence, alone in the dark. In the distance, he heard music starting up. Distant fireworks sparked in the night sky against the clouds.

After what felt like an eternity, adrenaline long having given way to monotony as he waited, he could hear the beginnings of the far-off crowd counting down to the New Year.

_Ten…_

_Nine…_

_Eight…_

_Seven…_

_Six…_

_Five…_

Natasha came sprinting out of the abandoned building.

_Four…_

“He’s headed back for the park! Go!”

_Three…_

“Clint, do you copy?”

_Two…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Year's Eve cliffhanger wooooo


	7. Six Geese A-Laying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me:  
> *leaves last chapter on a cliffhanger*  
> *doesn't write next chapter because NYE revels with his mother*  
> *updates at 3 in the morning instead*  
> Literal Human Train Wreck TM

_Happy New Year!_

A huge crescendo of fireworks lit up the sky far behind them, the shouts and hoots of revelers ringing in the air.

Sam followed Natasha at a cautious distance, halting a few yards behind her when she stopped abruptly at the edge of the park. Moments later, Clint leapt down from the fire escape of a nearby building, jogging over.

They traded a few hand signals before Natasha looked back over her shoulder, beckoning to Sam. When he hustled over to them, she leaned in and whispered, “Stay close behind us, as quiet as you can. He’s hiding in the park somewhere, Clint and I are going to try to flush him out. If he heads towards you, get in his way and try to slow him down.”

He nodded solemnly, and the two agents headed off into the darkness. Sam followed them, feeling like a herd of buffalo all by himself. He knew he couldn’t possibly be as deafening as he felt, but in comparison with the perfect silence of the others, every crunch of gravel and snapped twig sounded like a gunshot.

Even with the glow from the nearby street lights, this part of the park was as dark as ink. Sam could barely make out their silhouettes as they moved in sweeping, sidewinder paths, weaving back and forth across the empty space to cover as much ground as possible. Sam stuck to Natasha with as much agility as he could muster without getting in her way.

It was a relief when they stopped up short, freezing in place. Natasha once again waved Sam up to join her. As he stole forward, she and Clint traded a couple more hand signs, and he faded away into the darkness.

“He’s here,” she breathed into Sam’s ear.

_Where?_ he mouthed.

She motioned to a secluded marshy area about thirty feet away, similar to where they’d had their altercation with the swan flock. Settling down to a crouch, she tugged Sam down with her, and they huddled down on the grass side-by-side.

Under her breath, she whispered, “He knows we’re here, and he knows we know he’s there. So he’s waiting for us to lose focus and give him an opening to get out of here, and we’re waiting for him to let down his guard before we make our move.”

“How long are we waiting?” he whispered back.

Natasha just shrugged her shoulders. Sam nodded to himself, resigned. _You got yourself into this, Sam,_ he mentally reminded himself, settling in for the night.

Minutes stretched into hours. Sam’s muscles began to cramp and he was shivering with the cold, but he stayed as still as he possibly could. Natasha was impassive as a statue, appearing completely unaffected; Sam wondered absentmindedly how Clint was managing, in whatever vantage point he’d chosen.

He passed the time watching the shadows in the marshland, searching vaguely for patterns, trying to make out whatever Natasha was seeing of Bucky’s shape in the darkness. Before he knew it, his mind was drifting, and he nodded off.

When he was startled into wakefulness by a car horn hours later, a gathering light was growing in the pale sky. Sam blinked his dry eyes, surprised to realize he could actually see—just barely. He was still huddled in a crouched ball, his muscles stiff and sore.

Natasha glanced down briefly and smiled.

“What’d I miss?” he croaked.

She just shrugged again, eyes locked back on the target. “Okay,” he muttered hoarsely to himself. To Natasha, he whispered, “It’s going to be dawn soon, you know that, right?”

Her only response was a shallow nod of the head.

“We can’t still be here, people are going to start coming through here soon.”

A _what-can-we-do_ shrug of one shoulder.

Sam sighed mentally and shifted position, as quietly as he could.

Dawn came, the sun inching slowly up over the city skyline. They could hear dogs barking on the other side of the park. An early-morning jogger passed close by, fortunately just out of eyesight. Sam grew more and more anxious, picturing having to explain their stakeout to a suspicious cop on their morning patrol.

Suddenly, Natasha tensed, raising up on her haunches. She clicked her handpiece, sending a brief burst of static over the comms; Clint sent two short bursts in response.

Natasha slowly shifted position, moving into a runner’s starting crouch, then suddenly burst forward with tremendous speed, sprinting across the open grass towards the marsh. Caught off guard, Sam struggled to untangle his limbs, and almost fell when his leg cramped up as he tried to follow her.

He managed to get to his feet just in time to see Clint disappear into the marsh, coming in from the other side. Limping and cursing under his breath, he lurched towards the cacophony of honking and hissing at the center of the swamp reeds.

When he finally made it there, Natasha and Clint were already locked in a brutal struggle. They were grappling with Bucky, latching on to him from both sides to keep him from making a break for it. Surrounding them were five enraged Canada geese, screeching and dancing in circles. Their struggle seemed to be taking place in the geese’s nesting ground; dried reeds and down were flying everywhere, with trampled eggs covering the ground.

As Sam watched, Natasha used Clint’s thigh as a launch pad, kicking up to flip over Bucky’s shoulder and narrowly missing a sixth goose that went flapping past. She pulled him back by the arm, straining his shoulder and trying to make him overbalance.

Bucky grunted, nostrils flaring as he struggled to stay upright. Clint had his leg hooked around Bucky’s left calf and a deathgrip on his metal arm; between them, he and Natasha were attempting to leverage Bucky to the ground so they could get him under control.

Bucky’s chance finally came when Clint lost his footing on his back leg. It was only for a moment—his foot slipped in the muck for a fraction of a second before he regained his grip—but it was enough for Bucky to get him off balance.

With a powerful thrust of his thigh, Bucky dislodged Clint’s leg and shoved it upwards, knocking him back on his ass. His left side now unencumbered, he spun, pivoting on his right leg and rotating his shoulder to relieve the pressure on his arm.

He swung hard at Natasha with his left arm, but she deflected the blow, directing the inertia of his punch past her left side. She grabbed at his neck, trying to get him in a headlock, but he shoved his shoulder into her chest, slamming into her with enough brute force to knock her back several paces.

Bucky barreled straight at Sam, clearly not expecting any meaningful resistance. But he was in for a surprise when Sam latched onto him with all his might, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s chest as tight as he could and grabbing double handfuls of his hoodie.

Sam held on for dear life as Bucky thrashed, pressing close into his back to avoid Bucky’s attempts to grab him and pull him off. Just as Natasha made it back to her feet and was about to jump in and help, Bucky grabbed the front of his hoodie with both hands, ripping it in half down the front.

He squirmed out of the shredded fabric, throwing Sam into Natasha and turning to sprint off. He was out of sight in seconds, the distant indignant _Hey, watch it!_ of a park goer following in his wake.

Clint, back on his feet, trudged over to help Natasha and Sam disentangle from each other, helping them to their feet.

“We’d better move,” Natasha sighed. The flock of geese was going nuts, hissing and clacking and darting at their heels. They hurried out of the marsh; the geese chased them a little way, then gave up.

“Awww, eggs,” Clint muttered, trying to scrape bits of eggshell off his shoe. “Hang on. Geese migrate too, and they should _not_ be laying eggs in the winter, what the hell are they even _doing_ here?”

Natasha ignored him, reaching out to take the remnants of Bucky’s hoodie from Sam’s hands. “So are we back to the flyers plan?” he asked as he passed it over.

“We are not,” she said smugly, pulling a folded pamphlet from the hoodie pocket. “Sam Wilson, you beautiful incandescent being, you just found our next clue.”

“All right,” Sam grinned, pleased. “So where are we off to today?”

“Not sure yet,” she said distractedly. “It’s a brochure.”

“For what?” Clint asked.

“Not what, where,” she answered slowly. “It’s a brochure, for Lake Placid. Why would he be going to—”

Natasha broke off suddenly, staring off into space for a moment before bursting into gales of laughter. Clint and Sam looked at each other.

“Tash?” Clint asked tentatively. “What’s in Lake Placid?”

Natasha got her laughter under control, taking a few deep breaths and wiping tears away with the back of her hand.

“Miracles, Clint. Miracles on ice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also me: *hangs lampshade on ornithology violations for 2 chapters in a row*  
> if anyone can think of ANY plausible reasons why geese would nest/lay eggs out of season instead of migrating please leave them in the comments


	8. Five Golden Rings

“Welcome to beautiful Lake Placid,” Natasha said drily. “Home of the 1980 Winter Olympics, and most important, the Miracle on Ice.”

“You keep saying that, but you won’t tell us what it means,” Sam said pointedly. “Yesterday you said you’d tell us when we got there, and then I drove for nine and a half hours while you played games on your phone and Clint snored in the backseat, and then when we got here last night you said you’d tell us in the morning. And now it’s morning, and I still have no idea what we’re doing here.”

“Okay, okay, ruin my fun. Spoilsport. Short version: in the 1980 Winter Olympics right here in Lake Placid, the US Men’s hockey team—total rookies that everyone expected to wash out in the first round—ended up taking gold and beating the Soviet team, total pros with six gold medals already under their belts. Huge upset, classic underdog story, blah blah blah.”

“Like _Bad News Bears_ , except real life?”

“Pretty much. And since this was during the Cold War, it was a big hairy deal politically, and got turned into a huge propaganda thing, and they eventually made a bunch of embarrassingly bad B-list movies about it.”

“O…kay,” Sam said slowly. “Story sounds vaguely familiar. And we think Bucky would be coming up here because…?”

“Because Hydra wasn’t the only ones to get their claws into The Winter Soldier,” Clint said solemnly.

Natasha nodded. “They had kind of an exchange program, with the USSR. Traded technology, training methods, weapons…including the living ones. Almost all of the brainwashing techniques they used on Bucky, the ones in his file at least, were from the KGB. And a lot of the actual conditioning process was done in Russia. He spent decades there. Zimnii Soldat, they used to call him.”

“So…he’s coming here because it was an important event in Russian and American history?” Sam asked, raising his eyebrows.

“That’s the theory,” Natasha shrugged. “I mean, they had him pretty thoroughly convinced that he was Russian by the time that all went down. Between cryostasis sessions, when he was awake, he was just as invested in the glory of Soviet victories as every other Comrade in the KGB.”

“So we mosey?” Clint asked.

“We mosey,” Natasha answered, linking their arms together. “We are simple tourists, here to see the location of a great American triumph.”

Sam had to admit, Natasha and Clint pulled off ‘obnoxiously harmless tourists’ very well. Natasha was transformed into a bubbly, peppy girl with a charming Southern drawl, practically unrecognizable. Clint, oddly enough, was pretty much just himself, only…more so. Sam did his best to play along, taking all the pamphlets and brochures Natasha threw at him and ‘oooh’-ing at appropriate moments when Clint excitedly pointed out an interesting landmark.

They started at the Olympic Museum, Natasha reading every single placard out loud, one by one. Clint repeated the last phrase aloud after her, both of them ignoring the dirty looks from the other patrons around them. All three of them kept their eyes peeled, watching for any sign of Bucky in the crowd.

After completing a full circuit of the museum, they moved on to the Olympic Center. Natasha loudly read out a placard in front of the structure, explaining that the Olympic rings which adorned the building had been painted gold in 2005, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the games there.

Inside, they _ooh_ ed and _aah_ ed their way along the circular hallway above the rink, stopping at every glass cabinet to read and repeat every notecard, sign and placard inside it, gushing over the memorabilia from the famous hockey victory.

Finally, they circled back around to the entrance, and headed down into the rink itself. Sam caught sight of a familiar figure in the crowd on the far side of the rink and tensed up, but Natasha caught his arm in one hand.

“He’s seen us too,” Clint murmured across to him. “Just play it cool.”

Despite the humming of Sam’s nerves, he managed to follow the others’ leads, acting natural as they worked their way through the crowd towards Bucky.

For his part, Bucky stood out like a sore thumb. Alone, dressed more like a homeless man than a vacationer, he looked stiff and awkward. His hands stayed firmly stuffed in his pockets. Taking no pictures, barely glancing at the exhibits, he was conspicuous in the crowd as it parted and flowed around him.

True to Clint’s word, Bucky obviously was as aware of their presence as they were of his, despite pretending to be oblivious. He moved slowly away from them, cutting smoothly through the crowd at the same speed they approached to keep the distance between them from changing. They kept up their act as they followed him carefully, chattering and talking in a constant stream about anything and everything that came to mind.

Over the next few hours, tension quickly faded to monotony. Catlike, Bucky played casual, making no attempt to make use of the many opportunities he had to try and lose them. But neither did he let them get any closer. The nearer they approached, the faster he moved away, until they gave it up and let him set the distance.

Bucky lead them all over the area, including through the walking tour of the ‘historic’ downtown neighborhood and over several snowshoe trails (mercifully light on snow and passable on foot, due to unseasonably warm weather in the area), ending up at the Olympic Sports Complex by the late afternoon.

The bobsled runs from the Olympics were still active. Families with children crowded around and waited in long queues for their chance to try an exhilarating ride. Bucky found an alcove in the back of the room and lurked in it.

“What is he _doing_ ,” Clint muttered, frowning. “Leading us here? This place is packed with civilians, mostly kids. There’s way too many variables to control the situation if things escalate. It doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re right,” Natasha murmured back. “And look where he’s positioned himself. He’s boxed into a corner, without an escape route. We’re between him and the only exit to this building. Why let that happen?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

“Me neither. This whole thing stinks of a trap.”

“So what do we do?” Sam asked.

“Wait,” she replied. “Watch. It’s his party this time. We hang out here until he makes the next move.”

That was easier said than done without attracting attention, though. Bucky was already collecting stares and strange looks for his stillness, his silence, and the intensity he was radiating. Concerned mothers hurriedly herded their offspring away, leaving an empty radius around him.

As a compromise, they headed for the gift shop. Bucky was clearly visible through the big glass windows. They kept him in sight as they pretended to shop, Natasha loudly forcing Clint to try on every shirt and novelty hat she could find.

The crowd and the angle of the gift shop doorway would obviously have stopped them from getting to him in time if he bolted, yet strangely, Bucky didn’t take advantage of the out. He just settled further back into his corner, watching them from underneath the brim of his grimy baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes.

It took about forty-five minutes for Natasha to lose her temper.

“Okay. This is ridiculous.”

“Tash…” Clint warned.

“No. It goes against all field training he’s ever had for him to act this way, much less basic common sense.”

“Tash, what are you _doing?_ ”

“I’m gonna go talk to him. Stay here.”

“Tell me you are aware of how bad an idea that is—”

“Shut up, it’ll be fun. Just cover me, Clint.”

Clint groaned, swearing under his breath and taking a vantage point by the gift shop entrance as Natasha headed straight for Bucky. As soon as Bucky saw her on the move, he made a beeline for the door. Natasha picked up the pace, managing to intercept him before he got there.

She bumped right into him, colliding with his side. “Oh, I’m _so_ sorry, darlin’,” she chirped, patting absently at his chest with both hands. “Didn’t hurt’cha, did I?” Bucky backed away from her silently, eyes wide, and darted for the door at the first opportunity.

Natasha headed back to the gift shop, frowning to herself as she turned a small square of paper over in her fingers.

“That went really well,” Sam said, impressed, as she reached them.

“A little too well,” Clint grouched. “Suspiciously well.”

“Agreed.” Natasha handed him the business card she’d picked from Bucky’s pocket. “He let me do it, no doubt about that. The only question is _why_.”

“Maybe the answer is here,” Sam suggested, looking over Clint’s shoulder. “The Raven? Isn’t that a poem?”

“It’s a restaurant, based on the poem. I’ve actually been there before,” she said. “It’s in the arts district back in DC. Pretty cool place. Good craft beers.”

“Then I guess we’re having dinner there tomorrow,” Clint said.

“Is that a good idea?” Sam asked. “Showing up, if he’s leading us there? I mean, you said earlier this felt like a trap, so…”

Natasha shrugged. “He’s obviously trying to tell us something. The only way to communicate back is to show up and listen. You want to drive back to DC tonight, or first thing tomorrow morning?”

“I want somebody else to take a turn behind the wheel,” Sam griped.

“But you’re our wheelman, Sam,” Clint said, grinning. “You’re our Jason Statham. Our Vin Diesel.”

“Our Sandra Bullock,” Natasha chimed in.

“Y’all gonna make me unleash the Falcon,” Sam warned them, then sighed when they just laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BWAH HA HA HA HAAAAA THIS FIC WAS SECRETLY A PAID ADVERTISEMENT BY THE LAKE PLACID CENTER OF COMMERCE THE WHOLE TIME AND YOU ALL FELL FOR IT!!!!! But seriously though you guys have no idea how much time I spent googling for this chapter I'VE NEVER EVEN BEEN TO NEW YORK
> 
> unrelated: I can recite "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe, in its entirety, from memory. If you know me in the fleshverse ask me to do it sometime I'm told it's a trip
> 
> also unrelated: if you've never seen "Speed" then GO WATCH "SPEED" RIGHT NOW


	9. Four Calling Birds

“This place is nice,” Sam said approvingly, looking around. “I dig the décor.”

The restaurant was charmingly gothic, decorated in-theme from floor to roof. Carved statuettes of the restaurant’s namesake jutted out from the four corners of the ceiling, with black bunting draped between them around the edges of the room. Even the wait staff were all dressed in modernized versions of the classic Poe outfit, complete with silk scarf and dark, haggard eye makeup.

“I like the food puns,” Clint said.

Natasha rolled her eyes. “You would.”

Their server approached the table, fountain pen at the ready. “Have you settled on what drinks you’d like to use to stave off the awareness of your ever-approaching mortality?” she asked them, grave-faced. Clint mouthed _dark!_ to Sam behind his menu, widening his eyes comically and pulling a face.

“The house beer sampler for all of us, please. And waters all around,” Natasha answered. “Wait, before you go. Can you tell me if you know this man?”

The server looked over the photograph Natasha handed her, dropping the gloomy persona for a moment. “I don’t recognize him, hon. Who is he?”

“Just a friend of mine. He’s been having some trouble recently, and we think he might have been in here,” Natasha explained. “Would you mind showing that picture around to the rest of the staff, see if anybody else recognizes him? I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t really important that we find him.”

The server smiled at her sympathetically, completely won over. “Of course, no problem. Don’t you worry.” She tucked the photo into her uniform pocket, carefully rearranging her face back into a glower before turning away from their table.

“Do we expect him to turn up here?” Sam asked quietly.

“I don’t think so,” Natasha mused, still looking over the menu. “But like I said yesterday, he wants us here for a reason. I can’t think what it could possibly be, though. I’ve been trying to rationalize his movements, figure out his link to this place, and for the life of me I can’t come up with _anything_.”

“It’s weird,” Clint agreed. “I’ve been mulling over the same problem, and I came up with the same conclusion. As far as I can find, he’s got no connection here. It hadn’t even opened yet the last time he was in the states.”

“Maybe the server will come up with something,” Natasha sighed.

They sat in resigned silence for a while, each lost in thought, trying to guess what Bucky was doing by bringing them there.

After a time, Sam broke the silence, trying to lighten the mood. “So what’s the deal with these sculptures, anyway?” he asked, motioning to the miniature white plaster bust that formed the centerpiece of their table. “Who is this supposed to be, Napoleon? Not the best likeness I’ve ever seen.”

Natasha shook her head, smiling. “Don’t you remember the poem? ‘Pallid bust of Pallas.’ Look, the ravens are all sitting on them.”

Sam’s gaze followed her outstretched finger. “I’ll be damned. I didn’t even notice that. So who was Pallas, then?”

“Pallas Athena,” Clint answered. “Greek Goddess of wisdom.”

“That’s correct,” the server droned from just behind him, making him jump out of his chair. “Many linguistic historians theorize that Poe placed the Raven on the bust of Athena to indicate to the audience that it was telling the truth, and its grave predictions for the narrator’s future would come to pass.”

“Wow,” Sam said, impressed. “You guys really know your stuff, huh?”

“We do our best, sir,” she said in the same monotone. “Here are your beer samplers. Have you settled on your meal orders yet, or would you like to spend more of the fleeting time we’re allotted on Earth deciding?”

“I can’t decide between the Chicken Poe Pie and the Filet of the House of Usher,” Clint said, frowning. “Sam, what about you?”

“I was looking at the Tell-Tale Romaine Heart salad, but is it possible to get it with chicken, and without the red onion?” Sam asked.

“Of course the kitchen can accommodate any custom requests, sir. It’s all we can do to make your fleeting time in this mortal shell just slightly less unbearable. And you, madam?”

“Hmm.” Natasha tapped her lower lip with one finger. “Is the Quack of Amontillado the only dish you serve with duck?”

“Actually, madam, we do have a special with duck today, the Duck a l’Enore, which is served with a creamy orange sauce, and mandarin wedges.”

“Oooh, that sounds good. I’ll take the special. Clint, you make up your mind yet?”

“I think I’m going to go with the Filet of Usher. Medium rare, please.”

“Very good, sir,” the server intoned. Breaking character for the second time, she leaned in to murmur to Natasha, “I didn’t get the chance to pass that photo around yet, darlin’, but don’t you worry. I’ll make sure everyone sees it.”

“Thank you so much,” Natasha murmured back.

They turned to their beers as the server left with their menus, tasting each of the different brews curiously.

“The Balm in Gilead is even better than last time,” Natasha said appreciatively. “Nice honey flavor to it.”

“Which one is that?” Clint asked.

“The pale ale on the end. Here, they’ve got a little card that explains them.”

Sam looked over in interest. “Does it say what this dark one is? It’s nice and rich.”

“That…” Natasha consulted the card. “…is Midnight Dreary. Says here it’s a new addition, ‘a full-bodied stout with hints of dark chocolate.’ ”

They passed the time sipping their drinks, comparing notes and discussing their flavors, until the food arrived.

Clint tore right into his steak, making appreciative humming sounds around his giant mouthful. Natasha and Sam dug into their food in a slightly more dignified fashion.

“The duck really is superb,” Natasha admitted. “Not as fatty as you get with duck a l’orange in a lot of places. Here, taste.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam agreed, nodding. “We’re gonna have to come back here.”

Clint finally swallowed. “So what’s the game plan?”

Sam looked to Natasha, who shrugged her shoulders. “We wait and see what the server comes up with.”

“And if she comes up with nothing?”

She took another bite of her meal, chewing and swallowing before she answered. “Let’s burn that bridge when we get to it.”

They let the matter drop, passing the rest of the meal with pleasant small talk. No hint or sign of Bucky appeared, although Sam still caught himself searching for Bucky’s face among the other tables more than once.

The server came to clear away their dinner plates. “Would you like to see a dessert menu?” Before they could answer, she leaned in close to Natasha again, handing back the photograph of Bucky. “I passed it around to everybody, sweetie. Nobody’s seen him here, and we’d remember a handsome face like that. I’m real sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Natasha said. “Thank you for trying. I will have dessert, I think.”

With a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, the server bustled away with the tray of dishes. Natasha seemed oddly unaffected, browsing the menu casually.

“So?” Clint asked, after a minute.

“I think I’m going to have the Four Colly Birds,” she said absently.

“You know that’s not what I meant. What are we going to do? Wait until they close, and sweep the place?”

“I’m going to have dessert,” she said, raising her eyebrows and staring him down. “And then we’re going to pay the bill and go home.”

“We’re not gonna follow up on this?” Sam asked, disbelieving.

“Nope,” she said simply, turning her attention back to the menu.

“But…why not? We haven’t found a new lead yet, how are we going to find him?”

“We’re not going to.”

“ _What?_ ” Sam sputtered. “After all that talk about not giving up—”

“No, Sam, I get it now,” Clint interrupted. “Something’s shifted. Bucky’s not running any more, he’s not acting like a target, and we don’t know why. He brought us here to tell us something. If we don’t learn what it is, he’ll reach out to try again.”

“So…we wait for him to come to us,” Sam said slowly.

“Exactly.” Natasha pursed her lips, setting the menu down. “Definitely the Four Colly Birds for me. You two should think about trying it too, it’s a seasonal thing so they won’t have it long.”

“What is it?” Clint asked, craning his neck to look at the menu.

“Dark chocolate mousse, dusted with peppermint and garnished with black licorice. Listen to this: ‘Not many people know that the “four calling birds” in the classic Christmas carol were originally “four colly birds,” where “colly” meant sooty, or black in color. It likely meant the European Blackbird, a common food item at the time. Now that it’s an endangered species, though, a chocolate “blackbird” will have to do. But at least it’s one served in a restaurant named after a colly bird of a different sort!’ Cute, huh?”

“It does sound good,” Sam admitted.

“Let’s make it three, then,” Clint shrugged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys appreciate how much work I put into those food puns


	10. Three French Hens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: this chapter contains a brief but graphic description of an average day working in customer service. Proceed at your own risk.
> 
> sidenote: “Quack of Amontillado” I’m still laffin...I am HILARIOUS

“This feels weird,” Sam said at one in the afternoon.

“What feels weird?” Clint asked from his usual spot, upside-down on the couch.

“Laying around at home instead of trying to track Bucky down,” Natasha answered from the armchair, then swore vividly at her phone.

“You die again?” Clint asked, flipping to his feet and shambling over to flop on the back of the chair.

“Level thirty is _impossible_. I’d need superhuman reflexes.”

“You _have_ superhuman reflexes.”

“Yeah, well, the game doesn’t respond fast enough.”

“Oh, sure, blame the controller.”

“I’m serious,” Sam said. “Even with a normal life I always liked to stay busy, and it just feels weird to be hanging around here when everything’s been so hectic the past week and a half. I don’t like it.”

Natasha snorted disdainfully. Sam was hurt for a moment until he realized she was still focused on her phone game. She switched it off in disgust, thrusting it into her pocket, and looked up at Sam. “Well, if you want something to do, I’ve got an idea.”

“Lay it on me,” Sam said, perching on the coffee table.

She sat up, a mischievous smile growing on her face. “How about we start planning Steve’s surprise dinner on Tuesday?”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “We’re still doing that?”

“Of course we’re still doing that, why wouldn’t we?”

“Because of our distinct lack of Bucky to give him?”

“Oh, don’t be such a wet blanket. It’s all gonna work out fine.”

“Tuesday is the day after tomorrow, you really think we can bring him in by then? When we haven’t seen him in over two days already?”

“What can I say, I’m an optimist.” She leaned on the arm rest, smirking. “How about we plan for the best, and if worst comes to worst, we still get to have a fun party.”

“Okay, fair enough,” Sam said, giving up. “What do you want me to make?”

“Who says you’re cooking?” Clint demanded. Sam rolled his eyes.

“Because either I cook, or you and Natasha destroy my kitchen—again—and then order a pizza.”

“You forgot option C,” Clint pouted.

“Option C is you two order Chinese takeout instead of pizza,” Sam grinned.

“I resent the ‘again,’ for the record,” Natasha said. “But yes, you’re cooking. I don’t cook, as a rule, and Clint literally burns pasta.”

“Oh my god, that was _one time_ ,” he muttered.

“How do you _burn_ pasta?” Sam demanded.

“He forgot to put the water in,” Natasha said dismissively. “Anyway. I was thinking something simple, like a roast? With mashed potatoes maybe. And some sort of vegetable. Clint and I will help, of course.”

“Sounds pretty easy. I’ll make an apple pie, too. My grandmother’s recipe.”

“I think you just out-America’d Captain America,” Clint snickered. “So…off to the grocery store?”

“Off to the grocery store!” Natasha bounced up out of her chair.

“Wait, we have to make a list first,” Sam said, following them out of the living room. “Guys, wait!”

***

“White potatoes or red?” Clint asked.

“Red,” Sam answered from examining the apples in the other aisle. “Yellow onion. A big one. And grab a thing of celery.”

“Do we need garlic?” Natasha called over.

Sam scoffed. “What kind of kitchen would I have without plenty of garlic?”

“Well all right then,” Natasha said, pulling a face as she tossed the garlic back onto the rack.

They wandered around the store, the shopping cart slowly filling up. Sam spent a solid ten minutes deliberating over the different cuts of meat, while Natasha and Clint made fun of passing patrons’ outfits under their breath.

Eventually, they made it over to the dairy section.

“What’s the difference between yogurt and greek yogurt?” Natasha asked. “They don’t have any plain yogurt that’s not in, like, gallon tubs. Do you think greek yogurt will be okay? Sam, are you listening?”

“I’ll be right back,” Sam said, frowning. His attention had been drawn by another shopper, in the nearby poultry section, where a middle-aged woman was haranguing an unlucky store clerk.

“What do you _mean_ you only have _three_ cornish hens left?! I need five! I have eight people coming over for a dinner party tonight! This is unacceptable!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the clerk quavered. “We get new stock in tomorrow, but—”

“ _Tomorrow_ will be too late! Check in the back!”

“Ma’am, as I told you, all our meat is on the shelves right now, there is nothing in the back for me to—”

“You just don’t want to do your job, you lazy little bitch! Get me your manager right now, I am going to have you fired for this!! This is the worst service I have _ever_ received, you have _ruined_ my dinner party with your selfishness!”

The woman was advancing on the young clerk, waving a finger threateningly in her face. Sam came up just in time, stepping in between them to shield the girl from the woman’s advance and folding his arms over his chest.

“Ma’am, there is no reason for you to be acting like this,” he said reprovingly. “This young lady is working as hard as she can, and she’s doing a great job. She can’t magically pull another chicken out of thin air. If this dinner party is so important, you shouldn’t have left getting the ingredients until the last minute. Or you could easily try another supermarket, and get additional birds there. Either way, she has been nothing but respectful and is doing her best to help you, despite your behavior. The way you’re acting is disgraceful, especially for a grown woman. Now, I think you owe her an apology.”

The woman had completely deflated in the face of Sam’s disapproving lecture. She mumbled _sorry_ under her breath and fled, beet red.

“You okay?” he asked the girl kindly.

She nodded, wiping a couple of stray tears away. “Thanks. I just don’t know why people like that exist! Like, I’m _trying_ , but she doesn’t care, she just thinks if she’s enough of an asshole the manager will give her stuff for free,  never mind that it comes out of _my_ paycheck…”

Sam nodded sympathetically. “Well, you’re doin’ a great job. Keep up the good work. And if she does try to complain to your manager, you come get me and I’ll set them straight, okay?”

She promised she would, thanked him again, and headed back to work, pulling herself together. Sam strolled casually back over to Natasha and Clint.

“You big softie,” Clint teased, nudging Sam in the ribs.

“Like you weren’t about to head over there yourself,” Sam teased back.

“I was about to shoot that woman,” Clint retorted.

“Will you help me figure out this yogurt thing,” Natasha demanded.

“Cucumber salad is a greek dish, so greek yogurt is probably fine.”

Natasha shrugged and tossed a small tub of plain greek yogurt into the cart. “So what’s next on the list?”

“Umm…” Sam pulled the shopping list from his pocket, consulting it. “I think that might actually be…”

“Sam?” Clint asked. “Might be what? Sam?”

“Oh, uh…everything. I think we got it. Why don’t you two go get in line, I’m gonna go check on something.”

“Oh? Check on what?”

“Just something,” he said evasively.

“We’ll meet you at the front, then,” Natasha said, and lead the way towards the checkout. Sam didn’t see the significant glance that passed between her and Clint as soon as he turned his back.

Bucky was right around the corner in the nearest aisle, glaring resentfully at the spices. Sam approached him slowly.

“Hey, man,” he said gently.

Bucky ignored him, turning on his heel and striding away with surprising speed. When he reached the end, he turned. Sam was only halfway down the aisle; he stopped in his tracks, startled.

Looking dead into Sam’s eyes, Bucky reached into his pocket, drawing out a slip of paper, and very deliberately dropped it on the floor. Then he turned the corner, vanishing into the crowd.

Natasha and Clint were near the front of the line when Sam joined them at the checkout. Natasha had grabbed a pack of bubble gum from the checkout racks, apparently deciding she didn’t have to wait to pay before she opened it.

“So what’d he say?” she asked, snapping her gum.

Sam did a double-take. “You knew he was there?”

She rolled her eyes. “What kind of spy do you think I am? Of course we knew. But you’re the one he was staring at, and he let you see him, so it seemed like you were the one he wanted to talk to. What’d he say?”

“Nothing. He just dropped this.” Sam passed over the paper. “I can’t read it, it’s in some kind of Cyrillic script.”

Natasha read it over. “It says ‘National War Memorial, 0300.’ I bet he means the World War II memorial. It’s on Independence Avenue, not that far from here.”

“So we meetin’ him?” Clint said, popping a piece of Natasha’s gum in his mouth.

She gave him a look. “You need to ask?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes cornish hens are totally french shUT UP


	11. Two Turtledoves

It was exactly three in the morning when they arrived, the night crystalline and sharp.

The pool in the memorial had been drained for the winter, its fountain jets jutting up forlorn from the ground. Plows kept the surrounding sidewalk clear during the day, but heavy snowfall early that night had accumulated almost up to their knees. Bucky was already there, sitting on the steps at one end of the memorial, hunched over, leaning on his knees.

He didn’t react as they approached, slowly and carefully. Natasha waved Clint and Sam to stay back, heading over to sit down next to Bucky.

<Hello, James,> she said calmly after a moment.

He shifted in his seat before answering. <Hello, Natalia.>

<How have you been?>

Sam leaned down to Clint. “What are they saying?”

“No idea, man. I can only lip-read in English.”

<It’s been a long time since Moscow,> Natasha went on.

Bucky nodded. <Some sixty years. You look exactly the same.>

<You look older,> she countered, smiling. Bucky looked at his feet.

They sat in silence for a while. The night was cold, but calm; no wind was blowing.

Natasha leaned back, looking up at the stars.

<Why are you doing this, James?>

<I’m not doing anything.>

<Oh no?> She sat forward again, turning to stare at his face. <You’re not doing anything? You’re not leading me around from place to place, playing children’s games, dropping little breadcrumbs for me to find? Look at me, James. _Look at me_. >

He met her gaze, resentful, trembling.

<Why do this? Why run me around in circles? Why not just come to me, instead of slipping love notes under my door?>

He huffed out a short breath, twisting his metal hand in his bare palm.

<Ah.> She leaned back again. <Of course. Because you were afraid of catching a sniper’s bullet through the head, if you came out in the open.>

<Can you tell me it’s a pointless fear?> he countered.

<Of course not. Controlling when and how we found you was the smartest thing you could have done. It still stings that you didn’t trust me.>

<I’m not sorry,> he muttered.

<I didn’t say you should be. You did the right thing, you know, coming to me instead of Steve. I know that must have been hard for you.>

<It was.> He sighed and leaned back too, joining her. <What else could I do? Steve has many good qualities, but subtlety isn’t one of them. He wouldn’t have made it an hour into searching for me without blowing something up, if he knew I was in the city. I couldn’t risk that kind of attention, not before I knew where I stood.>

<I nearly set a few fires myself, when we lost you after the dairy farm,> Natasha teased. <What did you intend us to find there, anyway?>

<I left a cache there that had enough clues for you to be able to find my backup safehouse,> he explained. <I meant to take you to the Olympic center from there, but I had to improvise. I thought you would search the place more thoroughly.>

<I should have,> Natasha said, shaking her head. <I don’t know what I was thinking.>

<It’s not like you,> he said. <That’s not how I taught you.>

<It’s not,> she agreed. <You were a good teacher.>

They fell silent for a while, watching the night sky side by side. A pair of doves came and perched on the arch above them, cooing to each other.

Bucky’s hands were shaking, and not from the cold. Natasha looked at him sidelong.

<How long has it been since you’ve slept?> she asked.

He shrugged. <I’m not sure. It feels like years.>

<Come back with us,> she offered. <Sam has a nice house with a wonderful guest bedroom. You can sleep as long as you want.>

Bucky glanced at the two men, waiting at a respectful distance. <Which one is Sam?>

<The taller one.>

<He kicked me in the head,> Bucky muttered.

<Yeah, well, you shot me. We’re not holding grudges.>

<That was decades ago.>

<Not _decades_. >

<It wasn’t my fault, anyway. I didn’t know who you were. They took that from me, too.>

<Well, Sam didn’t know who _you_ were, only that you were trying to kill Steve. Which wasn’t your fault either, of course. >

They fell silent again, for a long time.

<The sun will be up soon,> Natasha said, at length.

<We have a few more hours,> Bucky replied.

After another long silence, he asked, <Is he angry?>.

<At you?> Natasha said. <No. God, no. He blames himself. For not noticing Hydra was inside SHIELD, for not getting to you sooner. Hell, even for not saving you from falling off that train. He’s worried sick, though. I’m going to see him tomorrow, we’re having a little dinner party. You should come.>

<I don’t know if I should come back at all. I’m not sure I want to. I’m not even sure who I am, not really. He says he knows me, he says—all my life, he said.>

<You don’t remember?>

<I remember a lot of things and none of them make sense and not all of them can be true.>

Natasha nodded. <I know how that is.>

<I just know…> Bucky sighed. <The only thing I’m absolutely sure of is I need him. Somehow, something…is _drawing_ me to him. I’ve felt hollow for so long, Natalia. So empty. I think he’s the only thing that can fill the holes inside me. Call it an instinct. >

<That sounds like a good reason to come back.>

<He’ll be expecting me to be someone I’m not anymore. Someone I don’t even remember. My name is on the wall up there, did you know?> He gestured behind them to the memorial wall.

<I did know. It’s on the SHIELD memorial, too.>

<I died in the war. James Barnes died a long time ago. I don’t know who I am.>

<I know how that is, too,> Natasha said earnestly. <You get to _decide_ , James. They tried to make you into their toy, their weapon, and you _stopped_ them. You won. You get to choose who you are, from now on. That’s what freedom means. >

He looked at her for a long minute, studying her face.

Above them, the doves took flight, winging up into the night sky.

<If I came with you,> he asked slowly, <would it be for good? Would I have to stay?>

<No,> she answered simply. <Stay as long as you want, and leave whenever you like. You’re a free man.>

<Steve will try to make me stay.>

<Steve will understand why you need to go.>

<…Is it safe?> he asked, tentative, gripping his human hand to stop it from shaking.

<As safe as anywhere else,> she said honestly. <It’s not under any kind of surveillance from any of the various government agencies looking for you. Which is all of them. I’ve been diligent about that, at least. You know I can’t promise anything. But if anyone finds you—and they will find you eventually, no matter how well you hide—you’ll be safer with backup. You’ll have me, and Clint, and Sam. And you already know that Steve would burn the whole world to the ground before he’d let anyone hurt you again.>

Bucky shrugged. <You’re not wrong,> he said.

<I know I’m not.>

<I need him, Natalia. I need him and I hate it and I’m terrified because I can’t remember if I’ve always needed him, especially like this, the way I know I need him right now.>

<He’ll give you whatever you need,> Natasha said quietly.

<I’m terrified of that too.>

<Why?>

<Because he’ll do whatever it takes to make me whole, even if he doesn’t want it, even if it breaks him.>

<I won’t let that happen.>

<You can’t stop it.>

<Just for today, then?> she asked. <You’ll be able to think more clearly after you’ve slept. You can decide whether to stay when you wake up.>

Bucky’s lips quivered. Natasha waited patiently while he thought, jaw working. Finally, he nodded.

Natasha smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you didn’t notice how carefully I’ve been avoiding the topic of where Natasha’s original lead came from, did you. That’s right. I’m Subtle.


	12. And a Brainwashed Ex-KGB!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, the thrilling conclusion!

<Is this really necessary?> Bucky grumbled.

<I made a promise, and I’m _going_ to keep it, > Natasha threatened. <Now hold still.>

<This is ridiculous,> he muttered, but he raised his arms obediently at Natasha’s urging.

“I can’t believe you’re really doing this,” Clint sniggered.

“What did I say, Clint?” she demanded. “ ‘I’m going to wrap that motherfucker in tinsel and put him under Steve’s Christmas tree.’ That’s what I said.”

“This is _ridiculous_ ,” Bucky muttered again.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” Natasha scolded. “It’s gonna be fun. And Steve’s gonna love it.”

“Technically, this isn’t Steve’s Christmas tree,” Sam pointed out, starting to set the table. “But I won’t play with semantics.”

“I’m sure Steve will appreciate the effort anyway,” Clint said, flopping onto his usual place on the couch. Bucky swore under his breath in Russian.

<Why did I let you talk me into this?> he griped.

<Because I’m adorable and because Steve’s going to go nuts for it,> she said sweetly.

Bucky sighed. <…You really think so?>

<Trust me. I’ve spent half my life trading on lust and love, I know what they look like in a man. Steve needs you the same way you need him, and just as badly. You should have seen his face when he realized you were alive. I was sitting there bleeding to death, and he barely noticed, he was so heartbroken that you didn’t recognize him.>

<Why didn’t you tell me this last night?>

<Would you have believed me?>

<Probably not.>

<That’s why not.>

Bucky shrugged and put his arms back down. Natasha tied the ends of the tinsel in a very pretty bow, right over the center of his hips.

“Steve should be here in about half an hour,” Sam announced, straightening the last fork. “And the roast will be done in twenty. Are you ready to see him?” he asked Bucky, gentle concern written on his features.

Bucky took a deep, shuddering breath, then nodded.

Sam nodded back, smiling. “Glad to hear it.” He headed back off to the kitchen to check on the roast.

<He’s a good guy,> Bucky called over to Natasha. <I kind of regret trying to kill him.>

<Just kind of?> She winked at him.

Bucky snorted and tugged at the tinsel around his chest.

Thirty minutes passed, with no sign of Steve. Bucky started to get antsy five minutes later.

<Where is he?> he demanded from Clint, when Steve was ten minutes late.

“I, um…what? Hey Tasha—”

Bucky swore fluidly. “Steve! He should be here by now.”

“Hung up in traffic, maybe?” Clint shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll get here soon.”

Bucky grumbled and stomped off, checking the window for Steve’s bike almost constantly.

Another five Steve-less minutes later, Bucky was practically vibrating with tension. <I can’t stand this,> he snarled at Natasha. <If he’s not here in thirty seconds— >

<James, please.> Natasha put a hand on Bucky’s wrist, staring him down until he calmed. <He’ll be here. Just be patient.>

<This was a mistake, I shouldn’t have come in at all— >

<You slept for _twenty-eight hours_ , and when you woke up you said you didn’t want to run any more. That hasn’t changed just because Steve is fifteen minutes late. Just breathe.>

“He’s here!” Clint called excitedly from the window. Bucky’s eyes turned huge.

“Quick, get under the tree,” Natasha urged, prodding at Bucky to move him into position. “Everybody get ready! Sam! Sam, did you hear what Clint said, he’s here!”

“All right, all right, I’m coming,” Sam said good-naturedly, emerging from the kitchen with the roast on a platter.

A knock at the front door was immediately followed by the sound of it swinging open.

“Hey guys, sorry I’m late,” Steve called down the hall. Clint bounced impatiently on the balls of his feet as they listened to the scuffling sounds of Steve wrestling his shoes off. Under the tree, Bucky had gone poker-faced, nostrils flaring and shoulders quivering.

Steve’s voice approached the living room. “I realized after I left the house that I forgot to bring something, so I dropped by the store on the way here to get a bottle of wine. I don’t really know anything about wine, but the clerk said it was a nice-quality cabern—”

The wine bottle shattered when it hit the floor, spraying red wine and shards of glass around their feet. Clint sighed theatrically and went for a towel.

“Bucky?” Steve croaked.

They were frozen for a moment, a perfect tableau; the lights of the Christmas tree surrounded Bucky like a halo, glinting off the tinsel Natasha had arranged around him, making him seem to glow.

After a long moment passed, with Steve still frozen in shock, Bucky leaned over to Natasha. <Is this a good reaction?> he muttered out of the side of his mouth.

She smiled. <Very good. Just give him a minute to process.>

“I’m—is this—is it really you?” Steve took a half-step forward before freezing in his tracks again, his eyes welling up. “Bucky, I—oh my god, I—oh my _god!_ ”

He bulled forward, knocking over two of the dining room chairs on his way past. Natasha danced out of his way, smirking to herself as she narrowly dodged being run over. Steve charged straight to Bucky, stopping just short of slamming bodily into him, pulling Bucky into his chest as tightly as he could and burrowing his face into Bucky’s shoulder.

What was visible of Bucky’s face was comical, his eyes bugging out, his mouth trembling. His hands twitched, clenching and unclenching in indecision, until finally his eyes fluttered shut and he circled his arms around Steve’s lower back, holding him tightly.

“Guys, not to interrupt, but the food’s getting cold,” Sam said, twenty minutes later.

Clint had snapped a few photos before resuming his usual spot on the couch; the sounds of gentle snoring quickly followed. Natasha had watched them for a while with a warm smile, chin propped on one hand, before growing bored and pulling out her phone. Sam had finished cleaning up the mess from the broken wine bottle, then finished setting out the food, then carved the roast, fetched and poured out a new bottle of wine from in his kitchen somewhere, and was now very delicately hovering just out of arm’s reach of where Steve and Bucky were still standing, unmoving, wrapped around each other.

“I mean, I can just…” Sam gave up. “Yeah, I’m just gonna put it back in the oven to keep it warm for later.”

“N-no, that’s—” Steve’s voice came out muffled. Bucky let go immediately, dropping his hands to his sides, as Steve disentangled himself. “Sorry, I just—sorry.”

Steve’s face was red and blotchy, and he’d left a wet spot on Bucky’s shoulder, but he was smiling. “No need to be sorry, man,” Sam reassured him. “You two take all the time you need.”

“I’m fine,” Steve said quickly. “We’re fine. We are fine, right?” he asked Bucky, suddenly insecure. Bucky shrugged one shoulder, watching him warily. “We’re fine,” Steve told Sam firmly.

Natasha held a candy cane high up in the air, very carefully and deliberately dropping it onto Clint’s face. “Dinner’s ready, doofus,” she smirked as he flailed.

“I wasn’t sleepin’,” Clint mumbled. “Are they done making out yet?”

“I—wh—tha—we were _not_ making out,” Steve sputtered. “That is—let’s get one thing straight, okay, things are—it is not like that, between us, okay? I know you and Natasha like to make me the butt of all your jokes, but Bucky, Bucky doesn’t feel that way about me. Or guys. In general. So you just, just…” He trailed off.

 Bucky’s lower lip was trembling, his gaze fixed on the floor. He looked for all the world like a dog that had been kicked just one too many times.

“Bucky?” Steve asked uncertainly.

He turned his face up, looking up into Steve’s eyes with a helpless, pleading stare.

“Oh, _Bucky_ ,” Steve breathed. He reached out gently, smoothing back the hair from Bucky’s eyes with a light touch.

Bucky made a small strangled noise in the back of his throat and grabbed Steve’s shirt in both hands, hauling Steve down and himself up. He kissed him, hard and harsh and fierce and demanding. Steve’s arms went up automatically, curling around Bucky’s back to pull him in close.

“Great,” Clint muttered under his breath. “I’m _starving_ and we’re never going to eat now.”

Sam laughed. “Come on, I’ll serve. They can join us when they’re ready.”

“Don’t they need to _breathe?_ ” Clint asked a little later, halfway through his second slice of roast beef.

Natasha shrugged. “Supersoldiers, you know how it is.”

“You don’t kiss me like that,” he grumbled.

“Clint, you would _literally die_.”

“What a way to go, though,” Sam said mischievously.

“Don’t encourage him,” Natasha glared. “Are you two planning on doing anything else at all for the rest of your lives?” she called to Steve and Bucky. “Steve?”

“Throw something at them,” Clint said.

“Good idea. Pass me that roll.”

“Guys, no,” Sam groaned, to no avail.

The roll bounced off the back of Steve’s head. “Nice shot,” Clint cheered. “Here, do it again.”

The second roll rebounded off his temple, rolling under the couch, again with no reaction.

“I’m gonna throw something bigger,” Clint said, searching around the table. “Oooh, here.”

“No, you are _not_ throwing forks at them,” Sam said sternly, wrestling it away from Clint. “I said no, Clint. You’ll hurt somebody. Give it here. Just leave them alone, they’ve earned it. I mean it, both of you.”

“ _We’ve_ earned the right to mess with them a little,” Natasha teased. “I mean after all the work we did over the past two weeks…”

“I do appreciate that, y’know,” Steve said, finally disengaged from Bucky’s mouth. He was blushing bright red, but made no effort to hide his smile. Behind him, Bucky looked vaguely smug. “You are going to tell me the whole story, right? How you found him?”

“Technically, he found us,” Natasha said, motioning them to their seats and passing the potatoes. <Do you want to tell it, James, or should I?>

Bucky just shrugged, stuffing his mouth full.

“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” Steve told Bucky, still beaming. “I’m just so glad you’re here.” Clint pulled a face, making gagging noises behind his napkin until Sam kicked him.

“Merry Christmas, Steve,” Natasha said. “Sorry your present was late.”

Steve shook his head. “Merry Christmas, Nat. And don’t be sorry. This is…perfect. I think this might actually be the best day of my life. No kidding.”

Slowly, Bucky reached out, wrapping his hand around Steve’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it. It's been a ride. Thanks to everyone who left kudos and comments--even if I didn't respond to yours, I read and appreciated them all. Writing and updating this every single day has actually been a kind of punishing pace for me, so I probably would have abandoned it pretty quickly if I didn't know for sure there were people reading and enjoying every single chapter.
> 
> Happy Twelfth Day of Christmas, folks. I hope the ending didn't disappoint.


End file.
